Wendigo Woods (With Artwork)
Twin brother and sister, Ralph and Rachel Vasquez, trekked deeper into the heavily wooded forest. It was their family’s annual camping trip, and their parents finally allowed them to hike by themselves. They both wanted to explore the old abandoned mine that was stationed at the heart of the Wendigo Woods.
“Are we there yet?” Rachel groaned.
“It’s gotta be up ahead,” Ralph reassured his sister.
“Let’s hurry it up,” Rachel ordered, staggering a couple of feet behind her twin. “I don’t want to get lost out here, especially near an abandoned mine.”
“You remember the stories about these woods, right?” Ralph teased. “They said that over a hundred years ago miners started disappearing into the night.”
“Ralph, no!” Rachel scowled. “Don’t you dare try to scare me again.”
The kids then separated themselves among the wide oak trees as they ventured deeper and deeper. Ralph continued with his story. “They said that the miners were getting picked off one by one in their tents by a monster. They didn’t have the means to kill it, so they had to lure it deep into the mines and trap it down there. Since then they’ve named these woods Wendigo Woods after the monster that was trapped there. They even said that you can hear it from inside the mine howling for human flesh.”
“RAWR!” Rachel jumped out and grabbed her brother by the sides, forcing him to jump and scream.
“Not fair!” Ralph whined. “I was supposed to scare you!”
Rachel laughed and lightly tapped her twin’s shoulder, inviting a game of tag. Ralph chased after her and the duo ran through the forest. Their laughter and playing brought them to the outskirts of the abandoned mine. The land was dull and barren, many of the old trees stripped away long ago. Chunks of granite littered the ground and rusted metal carts laid broken and immobile. They then walked up to the boarded-up mouth of the mine. The old wooden boards looked greatly weathered and rotted. Marked onto the boards was a series of untranslatable scribes and small animal skulls were hanged above the doorway.
“Ok, we’re here. Now let’s get back to camp!” Rachel pleaded nervously. Cold chills flowed through her body as she looked on into the darkness through the rotted holes in the planks.
“HEY, MONSTER!” Her brother cried out, kicking at the old boards. “ARE YOU IN THERE?”
“Ralph, don’t do that!” Rachel barked, but Ralph kept kicking. Suddenly unstable boulders the size of basketballs rolled down the mountainside and aimed for the siblings. Both Ralph and Rachel jumped away from the rolling rocks just before they landed at the entrance. The boards were reduced to splinter piles underneath the granite stones.
“Alright, now we’re going back,” Ralph said and the two ran back to where their family was stationed.
A brown, furry squirrel hopped around on the stones and bounced toward the damaged mine entrance. Something drew its attention to this spot. Perhaps it heard the commotion and wanted to investigate, or maybe the sound of an impending mate lured it like a siren call. The small critter climbed to the top of the boulder pile and peered into the new large hole that was created after the landslide. Its nose twitched at the smell of something rotten creeping up to the entrance.
Before it could react, a large, gnarled hand with elongated fingers launched from the mine’s abyss and snatched up the helpless squirrel. The hand brought the squirrel into the mouth of a predator that was cloaked in darkness. It violently chomped away at its fur, bones, and guts until nothing remained. It hadn’t had a meaty meal for a long time and the whole rodent quenched its ongoing hunger. Yet the predator felt that it wasn’t enough. It wanted more flesh, more blood, more meals.
The creature then looked at the entrance. It felt something was off. The scribes and ruins that once forced the beast to flee many times before were no longer there. The entrance was also damaged, only piles of rocks were in place instead of wood. The creature crawled from the cold darkness into the warm light. Its leathery hide was dry and dead. It looked like a seven-foot tall, walking human corpse but with a pair of crooked antlers crowned above its brows. The eyes were as lifeless as the rest of it, black as coal and inhuman. Its distorted jaws bared rows of broken, sharp teeth.
The creature felt freedom for the first time since its imprisonment. It let out a deathly howl, signaling the forest and all those that inhabited it that the legend of the Wendigo Woods had finally returned to its hunting ground.